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This is a rough draft of Rants for your Maine Private Radio show for May 10, 2015.

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1. I never thought he’d do it, but my friend Winky started to visit a psychiatrist. Of course the first thing I wanted to know the first time I saw him was whether or not it had helped his constipation. Winky said, “No, but now I know why I have it.”

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2. You know about the mirror suspended from the ceiling over my desk that enables me to see out the cellar window. What I see is a mirror on the garage that is angled so I can see the rhubarb stand out by the road. My friend Charlie Wing was impressed with my mirror system. He said it had to do with the law of optical rays. When he told me about it, I realized that it completely destroyed the logic in a reading book that I may have had at school in 1941. As I recall it said, "I can see you. Can you see me?" Any child who knew about the law of reflection who read that in 1941 would have snorted and raised his head and said, "What a fool question. By the law of reflection, anyone who can see a person in a mirror can, in return, be also seen by that person. Do you find it interesting that it was 74 years before someone called that to my attention?

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3. Winky was talking with a rich man who just tied up his boat by a dock in Tenants Harbor. And in the course of the conversation the rich man told Winky that he was born into this world without a penny. And Winky said, “When I was born I owed $8000.”

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4. Are you the kind of person who never puts anything away after using it because it is too much bother? I mentioned to my friend Mike that I have trouble finishing things. I don't even like to button up my shirt when I put it on in the morning as it takes too much time. Buttoning up a shirt is a lot of bother. Do you know what I’m talking about here? Here’s another question while we’re talking about No Things Considered. Do you believe that old men live longer if they are married? Marsha reminds me to eat and to shower. Radio friend Pegg says, “Most men don't need reminders to eat, although I can think of a couple who might benefit from a shower.”

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5. Do you remember that when President George W. Bush visited Iraq, an Iraqi man threw a shoe at him? Is that any way to treat a world leader who, for eight long years, did everything in his power to promote world peace?

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6. One day Marsha cried out from the kitchen. The can opener had stalled half way through a can of chicken noodle soup. I ended up bending the can enough to dump out the soup into a pan. Later, I washed off the can and the can opener and filmed myself trying to get the can opener off by following the directions printed on the back of the thing. I ended up cutting the can apart with tin snips and putting two new batteries in the can opener which enabled me to get it going and eject the tin. I put the film of myself fumbling with this operation up on Blip. The point of all this is that a woman wrote a review of the Blip piece and said that it had a “Zen like quality” to it. I Googled Zen like quality, but couldn’t find out what Zen like quality meant. I found dozens of sentences in which people had used the phrase Zen like quality, but not one page that would define Zen like quality. So, here is another common but undefined phrase cluttering up our language. I’m going to file Zen-like quality alongside of another undefined phrase: meaningful relationship. Does the term meaningful relationship have a Zen-like quality to it?

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7. You know how you only half read some things that you look at quickly. While posting a comment on Etienne’s Facebook page my eye inadvertently scanned an ad on the side of the page that I thought said, “Explore your paternity.” When I looked closer I saw it said “Explore your Personality.” But in the milliseconds that it takes the brain to process such data my brain rationalized Explore your paternity, assuming it was a slanderous commentary on our rural lifestyle.

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8. You’ve been to see your doctor recently and can clearly see in your mind the elevated table you sit on when you are poked and prodded. You sit up on the end of the table and sometimes you are asked to lie back down on the table. You sit on a huge sheet of wrapping paper that unrolls from the top of the table. When you are gone, they tear off the wrinkled paper you were sitting on and unroll some more for the next customer. But --- here’s something new. At my last visit I was greeted by a huge photograph of a sad looking young man that was printed on the paper. At the top it said, “Male Low Testosterone Medical Research Study” Beneath that next to the man’s picture it said, “Lack of Energy. Low Sex Drive. “It’s hard to admit, but that’s me.” I laughed when I saw it --- I was staggered --- and even brought a square yard of it home with me to show to my television friends. You know that the doctor didn’t pay for that paper. But can you believe that pill salesmen have got two foot square ads printed --- in color --- on the very paper that you sit on when you visit your physician for a physical? With creative genius like this unleashed, you know that advertising printed on some other paper can’t be far behind.

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9. My friend Winky was fishing off the end of the dock in Tenants Harbor when a big sailboat came alongside and tied up. While chatting with the young fellow who owned it, Winky said, “I’ll bet you never did a day’s work in your life.” The fellow said it was true. And Winky said, “Well, you ain’t missed a thing.”

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10. One of my all-time favorite comments came from Mr. Allen Pease, who was my history teacher back when I was an undergraduate at Gorham Normal 1962-63 or so. On the margin of my essay he wrote: “This is very well written, but you haven’t said anything.” I cherish that remark because over 50 years ago Mr. Pease saw something that directed the course of my life. Years later when my humor column was carried in dozens of newspapers, I realized that, as Mr. Pease had noticed, I was incapable of original thought but had some small talent when it came to synthesis: that’s a nice way of saying that I was never to be more than an editor for the wit and perception of others. So besides immediately writing down every interesting thing I heard, I also cultivated a coterie of witty friends who filled pages of my notebooks with good things. I adapted these good things for newspapers, the radio, television and the stage. And this is the point of my commentary today. You heard me say that I adapted the comments of my friends. That is, I often had to tweak a story this way or that to get the most out of it. You can be sure that other writers or storytellers have done the same thing for ages. Is this not a sobering point for reflection? No good story is ever quite true. I admit it. I just read that last sentence in a book.

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11. Brad Terry was rehearsing for a concert with a group of high school kids, and one trumpet player couldn’t get the intro right on Fascinating Rhythm. So when everyone else had left, Brad worked with this kid for two hours, and finally said, “Well, you’ve got it perfect for the concert tomorrow. And the kid said, “I’m not playing the concert. I only came in to help out with the rehearsal.”

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12. My friend Winky and I were in the men’s room at a fast food place in Rockland, when Winky hollered at me from the stall, “Any paper towels out there?” I said, “No only one of those air drying machines.” He said, “Can I --- can I have your handkerchief?” I felt in my pocket and said, “Bad news, I forgot to bring one this morning. Winky said, “Have you got two fives for a ten?”
When my friend Winky saved a small child who had fallen into a pond, the child’s mother asked if she could kiss the hand that saved her child. Winky said, “No it’s done a lot of other things, too.”

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